I know that minimalism is lifestylism and that you can’t address a production problem via consumption. But fuck, I already have so much bullshit and it’s just clutter and I keep buying more. Like the incentives to consume are so heavy that I need to actively resist the urge to buy things any time I go in public and if my will power doesn’t push through I’m coming home with another trinket that I’ll forget about in a week.
Heard joke once: Man goes to Hexbear. Says he's depressed. Says life seems pointless and empty. Says he feels overwhelmed in a world where what his only purpose is to consoooom. Hexbear says, 'Treatment is simple. Can’t consoooooom if you’re too poor to buy anything. That should pick you up.' Man bursts into tears. Says, 'But doctor…I am too poor to buy anything.' Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.
How about leaving your cash and credit card at home unless you have a specific thing you need to buy?
I only really go out to go to the store. Switching to buying things through Amazon has helped a bit though
If it's things like books (and even other forms of physical media like CDs/DVDs) then don't ever get rid of them. I got rid of a bunch of old books in various moves over the years and it's one of those things that I really regret doing.
A lot of it’s impulse buys for new hobbies I’m hyper focusing on. I pirate the shit out of everything. Although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t occasionally buy a random book
There's nothing wrong with hobbies. I wish I spent more time on hobbies! Unless you're spending more on various hobby things than you can afford, it's probably not worth getting too worried about.
Postmodernists like Venturi had a point by seeing the modernists and their "less is more" minimalism and deciding to reject it by saying that "less is bore". There's life and joy and fun to be had in the world, and we really do need to find it and cherish it where we can. If minimalism doesn't feel right for you, then trying to be minimalist for the sake of minimalism would be like a kind of religious puritanism. It would be nothing but a grey ritual of self-rejection and prostration and misery.
